Friday, April 18, 2008
YDreams and Mobile Games - a moment in history
17:52
July 7th, 2003 - YDreamers celebrate the launch of the Undercover mobile game
For a long time YDreams has been associated with mobile gaming. In recent times we have been slowly moving away from that particular business area, to focus on our core of interactive conceptual environments or experiences. Mobile games, though, played an important role in the company’s success history.
Undercover and Undercover 2: Merc Wars, which expanded the concept further, were mobile Massive Multi-player Online Games that incorporated live location features making them pioneer gaming experiences in that particular genre. This further strengthened YDreams expertise in location-based systems and, above all, as a creator of a different breed of interactive experiences. It took a lot of sleepless nights, hard work and some ingenuity to try to compete in such uncharted territory against the big players of game development.
It has to be said that the commercial success of that specific game was not matched by the critical acclaim it received. Sometimes it doesn’t pay off to be on the forefront. But the hype and exposure the company got for devising such a product, and the lessons we learned from the whole process, have been an important part of making YDreams into the company that it is today.
We still get asked if we are “that mobile games company”. We aren’t, and the truth is we never quite were. Mobile games were a part of YDreams’ interactive experiences portfolio, but never the whole of the company. We are immensely proud of Undercover 2, Cristiano Ronaldo Underworld Football’s success or the launch of Wall Street Fighter in a few months time, but now we have moved on to a whole bigger realm of more encompassing projects.
